F1 News
Pirelli to shake up tyre choice: "Wider range of options"
- Estéban den Toom
On Wednesday afternoon, Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli announced that they have selected the tyre compounds for the Bahrain, Saudi Arabian and Japanese Grands Prix. The tyres for the first five Grands Prix of the new Formula 1 season have now been revealed, and in terms of what can be used by teams and drivers, there are no changes in the first four races compared to the 2024 season. However, for the fifth race of the season, teams and drivers will be able to use softer tyres in Saudi Arabia.
Head of Pirelli Mario Isola explained why this choice was made for the weekend in Jeddah: "Based on our experience from last year and with the information gathered during the development phase of the new compounds, we wanted to go in this direction, to give the teams and drivers a wider range of strategy options."
"In 2024, 18 of the 20 drivers had started on the medium, namely the C3 and an early neutralisation in the race pushed 14 of those to switch immediately to the C2, which was then the hard, keeping it all the way to the end. With a softer trio, we believe this can lead to a situation where there could be a mix between one or two-stop strategies.”
See Pirelli's tyre choices for the first five F1 races in 2025 here
Just over a week to go and then Formula 1 drivers will be in action at the Australian Grand Prix. At the season opener in Melbourne, teams can choose between C3, C4 and C5 tyres. Nothing in this will change compared to the 2024 season. The same hardness as last year will also be used at the Chinese Grand Prix (C2, C3 and C4). At the races in Japan and Bahrain, C1, C2 and C3 tyres will be used. Check out the overview released by Pirelli below.
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
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